Thursday, October 11, 2012

Swearing, Insults And Abuse

It’s always useful to
have a few good insults up your sleeve. You never know when you
might need them. The Tipitaka can provide you with a rather rich arsenal of
insults, abusive retorts and swear words. We get familiar ones like ‘Donkey!’
‘Ox!’ and ‘Camel!’ (Vin.IV,12). To call someone ‘Shorty!’ or ‘Stretch!’ was
considered a bit rude too (Vin.IV,7). You could pass aspersions on someone by
saying “Your father and mother must be dead!” (atumari matumari) or by
calling them “the son of a childless mother!” (puttamataya putta) and
as today, calling a woman a whore (bandhakini) would be taken very
badly indeed (M.I,449; I,524; Vin.IV,24). One of my favourite insults is ‘Deer
shit!’ (Migalandika, Vin.III,68) Deer? Why deer feaces? One could
understand pig shit, dog shit or even bull shit. But deer shit? I find this
rather genteel. A person’s color or social status could be disparaged or
doubted and the ancients had no compulsions about using the equivalent to what
the Americans delicately call ‘the N word.’ The various ascetics, priests and
monks were pretty good at exchanging insults and “stabbing each other with verbal
daggers” too (M.I,320). Brahmins often referred to the Buddha’s ordained
disciples as “bald-headed menial monks” (mundaka samanaka ibbha,
D.I,90) and “the scrapings of our kinsmen’s foot” (bandhupad’pacca,
D.I,90). Once
some brahmins who had become monks commented to the Buddha that their fellow
brahmins “revile and abuse us. They do not hold back with their
usual flood of insults.”(D.III,80).

It is interesting to notice
the difference between the Buddha as he is usually thought of being in popular New
Age-like imagination and how he is portrayed in the earliest records. In the
former he is a benignly smiling sage who graciously approves of all beliefs no
matter how silly or unsubstantiated and even if he does disapprove of any he
would never be so impolite as to say so.
In the latter he has a clear and precise vision of Truth and of right and wrong
and is not afraid of pointing out the contrary of this,although he nearly always does this at an
appropriate time and in a gentle, polite manner. But not always!When the Buddha heard that the monk Arittha
was going around saying that indulging in sense pleasures (i.e. sex) is not
really a hindrance to liberation he repeatedly called him ‘Stupid man!’ (moha
purisa, M.I,132). This is more a rebuke than an insult but it sometimes
got a bit stronger than this. He said a lay disciples who believed in and
practiced various superstitions would be the outcaste (candala), the
filth (mala), the scum (patikittha) of the lay community
(A.III,206). After Devadatta’s plots and schemes the Buddha called him a chavassakhelapakassa
to his face (Vin.II,188). Now there is some uncertainty as to exactly what this
term means but there is no doubt that it would qualify as strong language. Miss
Horner translates it as “wretched one to be vomited out like spittle!”
According to the PTS Dictionary chava = corpse or wretched, and khelapaka
= something like ‘phlegm-eater. How about ‘Deadbeat lickspittle!’?
The Tipitaka only gives a few examples of a physical gesture used to insult
someone, e.g. to snap your fingers at them (D.II,96). Apparently shaking your
head and waggling your tongue after someone had told you something was a way of
saying “You are talking nonsense” (M.I,109).
Perhaps because I am an Australian I find all this rather mild and I suspect
the Buddha’s contemporaries, or at least the circles he moved in, were
generally a polite and urbane lot. Narendra Wangle’s excellent Society at
the Time of the Buddha (the revised edition, 1995) has several sections
analyzing all the modes of address used by the different groups and classes
within ancient Indian society. It shows that subtle put-downs and deliberate
slips of the tongue were far more common thanoutright insults – e.g. to address someone socially superior to oneself
in terms properly used for someone equal to or inferior to oneself.

Oh well, it's more about intention behind and some aspects of truthfulness. If I tell you that your are a "blatherskite" you could be hurted, or feel reseased as well and I could have the intention to harm your or to give you a hint that you lose the way.

I like the saying of Ajahn Mun: "Don't think that I shout at your, I shout at your defilements"

Oh this blatherskiters :-), of couse even the truth is useless at the wrong place and at the wrong time.

Well certainly those days the people must have been a lot more polite. I find that people abuse a woman by casting aspersions on her virtue while in the case of men it is an attack on his virility . A gender bias certainly!

About Me

I am not the 5th or 9th reincarnation of a great lama, I have not recived any empowerments or initiations, I am not the holder of any lineage, I am yet to attain any of the jhanas, I am not a widely respected teacher, I am not a stream enterer (at least I don't feel like one)and I do not have many disciples. Nontheless, you may find some of my observations and musings interesting. I have been a Buddhist monk for 32 years and am the spiritual advisor to the Buddha Dhamma Mandala Society in Singapore.